


Dog Days of Rafael Barba

by abrasivepersonalitytendersoul



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Fluff, Other, puppy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7024384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrasivepersonalitytendersoul/pseuds/abrasivepersonalitytendersoul





	Dog Days of Rafael Barba

This was probably going to be the longest weekend of Rafael’s life. He had drunkenly accepted to dog sit for his cousin while she went out of town. His mother had done everything short of putting a gun to his head to go to the family reunion, so he decided to make a drinking game out of it. He was buzzed after being there half an hour, tipsy after an hour, and fully drunk another forty-five minutes later. His mother cut him off before he could get blackout drunk.

Somewhere between his sixth shot of Fireball and third beer, his cousin mentioned that she had recently moved to Brooklyn from Philadelphia, but needed to go back to retrieve some things. Taking her dog would be too much of a hassle and would end up requiring a second trip back a few weeks later. She didn’t trust anyone else with her precious pooch. At least he actually liked to tolerate this cousin.

So he sat in his apartment, waiting for the doorman to buzz the intercom. He was on his third coffee and first paragraph of the case he was preparing for trial on Monday, when his phone vibrated. He forgot the building managers switched the intercom system to be compatible with cell phones. It was a picture of his cousin. He typed ‘yes’ and she was knocking on his door within minutes.

He opened the door and was immediately greeted by Tank. It wasn’t a very fitting name, as he was a Jack Russell Terrier puppy, but he was very energetic and could probably knock over a small child. Rafael held the door open and motioned for her to come inside. She walked in and placed Tank’s bag on the counter.

“Thanks again for agreeing to this. He’s a really good dog, but he’s getting to that stage, so just watch out,” she said.

“What do you want me to do if he starts furiously humping my leg?” Rafael asked.

“Enjoy that you’re getting laid this weekend. I just let him go. He usually runs out of steam pretty quickly.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to do that, but okay. It’s your dog.” He knew this was going to end badly and probably with a need for intense deep cleaning. Or a move to a new apartment.

“All of the things you will need are in his bag. There is enough food to last through the weekend, some snacks, toys, and his special friend for when he gets excited. I’ll have my phone on me all weekend if you have any questions, but like I said, he’s pretty easy going so you shouldn’t have too many issues. He eats twice a day and usually needs to go outside half an hour after eating.”

“You should have just written down a schedule for me. Does he have a mani/pedi scheduled for this weekend too?” he asked with a smirk.

She glared at him and said, “No. That’s next weekend. Anyway, I need to leave if I’m going to make it by dark. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”

She gave Tank goodbye hugs and kisses and left. All of a sudden it was quiet and he was alone with a small dog with the sex drive of a teenage boy. He knows what that’s like. He took pity on the animal for a second, then decided if his mom could spray him with a spray bottle when she caught him masturbating, he could too. 

He walked over to the bag on the counter and started looking at what was in there. He quickly recognized Tank’s special toy. He pulled his salad tongs out of the drawer and pulled the toy out. He flung it into the living room. Tank thought they were playing so he went after it and brought it back to him.

Rafael looked at the dog and back at the toy, then into the bag. He found a ball and tossed that. Tank stayed put and stared at Rafael.

“I’m not flinging your sex toy around. Go get the ball.” 

Tank just stared at him and wagged his little nub of a tail. Even Rafael had to admit that was almost too adorable to handle. He dug around in the bag a little more and found a squeak toy. He had work he needed to do and while the squeaking wouldn’t be very helpful, at least there wasn’t any love juiced toys being flown around like a frat house.

He pulled the toy out and looked at Tank. He dropped the toy from his mouth and let out a small bark. Not wanting to start something he couldn’t finish, he placed the toy on the ground and walked back to where he was sitting earlier with his case file.

Rafael sat on the couch and settled in for an intense session of studying the evidence in his case. He heard the pitter-patter of tiny paws and the light squeak of a toy being picked up. Soon he was lost in the process of picking apart the alleged perpetrator’s testimony and didn’t notice the crash of trash can on the kitchen floor. He ran into the kitchen to find Tank helping himself to the leftover Thai food Rafael had thrown away the night before. 

He let out a little screech and picked the dog out up out of the trash. Tank began barking, so Rafael grabbed the leash and tied the small monster to his kitchen table while he tried to clean up the mess. He got everything swept up and mopped up and he placed the trash bin in the laundry room. He scanned the apartment for any more potential messes. He shut the doors to the bedrooms and bathroom and let Tank loose again.

He sat tentatively on the edge of the leather couch trying to regain his line of thinking for the case. He had started to get back into his groove when he felt a cold, wet nose bump into his leg. He looked down, “Now what do you want?!”

Tank sat and looked at him, wagging his little tail again. “I’m not getting anything done this weekend, am I?” Tank happily barked at him.

“Are you hungry, boy?” Rafael asked. Tank’s ears perked up and he started panting.

Rafael walked back to the kitchen and pulled out the food, his cousin had packed and Tank’s food and water bowls. He quickly got the food and water placed on the ground and headed back to his work.

Minutes later, Tank started scratching at the couch Rafael was sitting on. He wasn’t sure about having the dog on his furniture, but he pulled the dog up to sit with him. Tank curled up on the cushion next to him, looking really cute- but Rafael would never admit that out loud. A short time later, he found himself engrossed in his work once again, completely forgetting about the pup in his charge.

The next time he looked at a clock, two hours had passed. He got up to use the bathroom and pull something together for lunch when he was quickly and rudely reminded he had an extra responsibility. The stench wafted to his nostrils in no time. He didn’t want to look at his bare foot, but he needed to assess the damage. He looked down and cursed at the dog. How could something so small produce so much poop? He hopped on one foot down the hall to the bathroom to try and wash his foot off. It took some time and an ungodly amount of soap, but his foot was clean. He returned to the living room to find Tank snoozing near the TV stand. He was mad and had lost his appetite, but he couldn’t possibly be mad at that small dog forever.

He took care to clean the mess as well as he could. There was some he couldn’t get up from where he stepped in it. He made a mental note to call the carpet cleaner’s on Monday. He slipped some shoes on and hooked Tank back up to his leash and took him outside. Rafael had never taken advantage of the dog park a couple blocks from his building for obvious reasons, so he decided to check it out. He grabbed the frisbee from the bag as well as his keys and phone and took the dog to the park.

The day before, it had rained a decent amount and despite the sun drying the majority of the ground, there were still some spots under trees that were still muddy. They played with the frisbee for the first ten minutes, but then Tank got distracted by another dog in the park. He sat on the bench next to the other dog’s owner while they played. He wasn’t much for conversation with strangers, so he checked his phone for calls, texts, and emails. Olivia had sent him a text saying they may need him later in the day if they could catch their perp and was willing to talk out a deal. 

He only looked up when the other dog owner started shouting, “Oh god! Muffins!” Rafael was on his feet in seconds. He got to the scene in time to see Tank dismounting the innocent dog he had been playing with minutes before. 

“I am so sorry, ma’am,” he said.

“It’s fine. It’s nature. Although I wasn’t looking forward to puppies so soon,” the owner replied.

“Yeah. Tank here is just a pup too. I didn’t think he’d do this while we were out.”

“Like I said, it’s natural. If she has puppies, it’s fine. My daughter will be pleased.”

Just then, his phone rang. It was Olivia, they had caught their guy and he was willing to strike a deal.

“I have to go. Is this the kind of thing we have to exchange insurance information for?”

“I don’t think so. But if Muffins gets pregnant, should I call you about taking a puppy?”

He took out one of his business cards and wrote his cell number on the back. “Call this number. If you need help getting rid of them, I work with people who have children and maybe they would want to add a puppy to the mix.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let you get going. It was nice to meet you…?”

“Rafael. And you are?”

“Leslie.”

“It was nice to meet you, Leslie. If Muffins needs anything, you can call me.”

He scooped up Tank who had managed to start rolling around in the mud under a nearby tree.

“You are a handful, Tank. How does my cousin handle you? I can’t leave you unattended for ten minutes!”

He got home and quickly changed his clothes. He didn’t need to be his usual courtroom fancy, but he needed to show he meant business. He chose a deep forest green polo with dark brown corduroy pants and light brown dress shoes. He double checked himself in the floor-length mirror and turned to leave when he nearly tripped over Tank.

“I’m still mad at you. Go lay down.”

Tank let out a little growl.

“Not now. What do you want? To come with me?”

Tank perked up a bit and wagged his tail.

“Stop being cute, damn it! I’m supposed to be mad.” He started walking towards the living room to pack his briefcase, but Tank kept getting under his feet.

“I can’t take you with me. This could take a while and I don’t need you pissing all over the squad room.”

Tank sat and looked at him with his big puppy eyes. Rafael felt his heart melting. He tried to remind himself to be mad at the little pup, but he was just too cute. He grabbed a towel from the linen closet and tried to take as much mud as possible off the dog as he could. It didn’t help much, so Rafael made a note in his phone to pick up dog shampoo on the way back.

The trip to the precinct was uneventful. Tank walked in like he ran the place, but then again, so did Rafael. Detective Carisi was at his desk processing some paperwork, but when he saw the Tank, his focus was lost. He agreed to watch the dog while Rafael talked to the perp.

Three hours, a lengthy confession, intense wheeling and dealing with the defense attorney, and the beginnings of a skipped meal induced migraine, Rafael emerged from the interrogation room to find Tank getting his belly rubbed by Fin.

“Do you want him for the rest of the weekend, Detective?” Rafael asked.

“Hell no. I don’t do messes and weird smells,” Fin replied, setting Tank back on the floor.

“Has it ever occurred to you that you might be in the wrong profession, then? Come on, let’s go.” He picked the dog up and headed out the door for a quick stop to the pet store.

“In and out, Tank. You’re familiar with that, right?”

He was able to get out of the store in less than twenty minutes and headed home. He laid the dog’s dinner out and popped a frozen dinner in the microwave for himself. Tank ate his food quickly and went into the living room. When Rafael’s food was ready, he followed. It didn’t take long for him to eat, so he started back in on his case. This time, he set an alarm on his phone to take Tank outside. The timer went off, and he took his break. 

When they returned from outside, Rafael started a bath. The mud and God knows what else was caked on Tank pretty well and he didn’t want to risk any more things getting caught in his fur. Come to find out, Tank didn’t care too much for baths. Thankfully he was still small enough that he couldn’t get out of the bathtub without help. Rafael spent a good thirty minutes lathering, rinsing, and repeating on the dog until he was shining like a new penny.

He grabbed another towel from the linen closet and wrapped the dog up in his arms. Tank licked all over his face. Rafael let out a giggle that would mean a lifetime of teasing if anyone from the squad had heard him. He knew he couldn’t be mad at this pup for long.

“Alright, I love you, Tank!” he said while he fought to get away from the dog’s tongue on his lips.

The rest of the night was quiet. Tank was either chewing on his bone from his bag or curled up next to Rafael on the couch. When his brain was fried for the day, Rafael grabbed a snack from the kitchen and settled on the couch to watch some TV before going to bed. Tank crawled into his lap and laid down. Both men were soon asleep and stayed there for the rest of the night and hung out there most of the next day until it was time for Tank to go home.


End file.
